I didn't get to do a whole lot of picking during the last week since my son and his girlfriend were visiting at the Vermont house, but I did manage to come up with a couple of things to take to Cape Cod next Sunday.

A pair of hand-forged iron and brass folk art andirons, probably about a hundred years old judging by the undisturbed patina.



And I also found a nice set of bronze bookends of a clipper ship flying the American flag, a late 19th C engraving of the America's Cup yacht "The Defender", a very small brass mast head lamp still with its original burner, a copper-bodied outdoor thermometer with a good bit of age, and a few other odd bits, but no pix of any of it yet. Along with the Butternut Stand I picked up a week or ten days ago, it will all be down on the Cape next Sunday, June 6, in Sandwich, MA, at the Cape Cod Antiques Dealers Association show at the Heritage Museum.

I hope the weather turns out as good as it did in Madison, CT, on the Village Green, yesterday. The rain held off all day and long enough for us all to get packed up, too. An easy show, a good crowd, and the Chamber of Commerce will do it two more times this season, so check it out.

Oh yes, one other thing...

How it made its way to rural New Hampshire I'll never know, but I picked up a nicely framed set of three pen and ink drawings of St. Tropez this morning at the Peterborough Antiques Market. I guess Peterborough, home to the MacArthur Colony, isn't really like most of the rest of rural New Hampshire, is it? This one will wait until the end of the month to make the trip to Bridgehampton, NY. Folks in the Hamptons are much more likely to be familiar with St. Tropez than those in New Hampshire, even Peterborough.




See you at the shows!

www.CharlesGardinerAntiques.com

Peterborough (NH) Antiques Market, every Sunday from now until early October. Today was a light day, only about a dozen dealers set up, and selling was soft... but the show is friendly, easy, and often a lot more busy than it happened to be today. For me, 90% of sales happened after 1PM as I was packing up. I'm not complaining.

Buyer or seller, if you're in the area I suggest you check it out, Route 202 South of the village of Peterborough (on the way to Jaffrey). Dealers begin to set up at the very civilized hour of 7AM and most don't start packing until 1PM. As I said, it's a friendly and easy show. You can call Otto ahead of time at 603-547-5832 or you can just show up. It is an Antiques Market, so no socks and t-shirts or yard sale leftovers, please!


Fewer than a half dozen of the things seen here will be taken to Madison, CT, next Saturday, so as always, see you at the show.

www.CharlesGardinerAntiques.com

People have been after me for some time now to blog my latest finds and my show schedule, so I guess I'll try to add it to my list of things to do or at least to catch up with...

This week I found a nice little One-Drawer Stand, early 19th C, Butternut with White Pine secondary and Black Walnut knobs. 28-1/2 inches tall, 18 inches wide, 17-1/4 inches deep. Quite some time ago it apparently got stripped; on the underside of the top is a single coat of black paint over the original red wash. Too bad, because otherwise it's pretty much untouched. They knobs may or may not be original, but if they're not they replaced a very similar knob.

I'll have it cleaned up and ready to go in time for the June shows.

I also picked up a nice little Knife Box, also 19th C but later than the stand, White Pine, blue paint over the original red. It's 10x14 inches, 6-1/2 inches tall at the top of the handle, and also is in good shape. The sides are canted, not square as they appear in the pic, but it's late enough, or simply primitive enough, that it's not dovetailed. Still, it's a good surface in a good color.


Tomorrow morning I'll run up to the Sunday Antiques Market in Peterborough, NH. I have a small load of inexpensive antiques packed in the van, a Post Office Sorting Station, a J.R. Bunting steel Lawn Chair from the 1930-40s, and the like. Next Saturday I'll be in Madison, CT, on the village green for the first of the summer shows in Madison, and on the first Sunday in June I'll be in Sandwich, MA, for the CCADA Spring Antiques Show at the Heritage Museum. HOWEVER, we're expecting a grandchild at some point in the next couple of weeks, and when the baby decides to make his or her appearance (Mom and Dad decided they didn't want to know ahead of time) we'll be there, regardless of the antique show schedule. Later in June I may set up at Farmington, CT, I will set up at Bridgehampton, NY, and I might run up to Keene, NH, late in the month to see what that's all about.

No promises, but I'll try to add pix of stuff I come up with from time to time, and post at the beginning of each month during the summer and fall with the show schedule.

Until next time, see you at the show.

http://CharlesGardinerAntiques.com